The relationship between psychological skills usage and competitive anxiety responses

By D. Fletcher, S. Hanton. 2001

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Objectives. To investigate equivocal findings within the literature addressing the relationship between competitive anxiety responses and psychological skills. Intensity (i.e. level) and direction (i.e. interpretation of intensity as facilitative or debilitative) dimensions of competitive state anxiety and self-confidence were examined in performers with different levels of psychological skills usage. Design. Cross-sectional design assessing psychological constructs during competition. The independent variable was psychological skill usage (“high” and “low” groups) and dependent variables were competitive anxiety responses. Method. Non-elite competitive swimmers ( N =114) completed a modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2) which examined both intensity and direction dimensions prior to racing. Following the event these participants completed the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) which measures psychological skills usage. Based on the TOPS scores the swimmers were dichotomised using post-hoc median-split into high and low usage groups for certain psychological skills. Results. MANOVAs revealed significant differences in the CSAI-2 scores between the high and low usage groups for the skills of relaxation, self-talk and imagery. ANOVAs indicated significant differences on all CSAI-2 subscales for relaxation groups, and differences on cognitive intensity, somatic direction and self-confidence for self-talk groups, and self-confidence for the imagery groups. Conclusions. Non-elite swimmers, in contrast with previous research examining elite swimmers (Hanton, S. & Jones, G. (1999a). The acquisition and development of cognitive skills and strategies: I. Making the butterflies fly in formation. The Sport Psychologist , 13 , 1–21), primarily use relaxation strategies to reduce and interpret their anxiety intensity levels as facilitative, relying minimally on other psychological skills.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b14ceba6baf10de4aa236d2200357cafea9164bd

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. D. Fletcher
2. K. Azadi
3. Lee Crust
4. S. Mellalieu
5. S. Hanton
6. Rich Neil
7. C. Harwood
8. L. Hardy

In Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

1. K. Azadi
2. D. Fletcher
3. Lee Crust
4. S. Mellalieu
5. Rich Neil
6. S. Hanton
7. C. Harwood
8. L. Hardy

In Social Psychology

1. D. Fletcher
2. K. Azadi
3. Lee Crust
4. S. Mellalieu
5. S. Hanton
6. Rich Neil
7. C. Harwood
8. L. Hardy

Citations in the corpus

• Motivational Profiles and Psychological Skills Use within Elite Youth Sport (2004, background): “Within its 16 subscales, the TOPS allows researchers to investigate four of the most commonly cited and established psychological strategies (ie, Goal setting, Imagery, Relaxation, and Self-talk) for both practice and competition contexts ( Fletcher & Hanton, 2001 ; Hardy et al.”
• The role of sensitizing experiences in music performance anxiety in adolescent musicians (2008, unknown): “…other social-evaluative anxieties such as test anxiety (Beidel & Turner, 1988; King et al., 1995; Prins & Hanewald, 1999), public speaking (Burns, 1999; Pelletier, 2003; Woody, 1996) and sports performance (Fletcher & Hanton 2001; Hanton, O’Brien, & Mellalieu, 2003; Hardy, Jones, & Gould, 1996).”
• Mental toughness and athletes' use of psychological strategies (2010, methodology): “Several researchers have recommended the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS; Thomas, Murphy, & Hardy, 1999 ) as an appropriate instrument for assessing use of psychological skills (Fletcher & Hanton, 2001 ; Gould, Dieffenbach, & Moffett, 2002 ; Jackson, Thomas, Marsh, & Smethurst, 2000 ; Willi”
• Recent developments in competitive anxiety direction and competition stress research (2008, methodology): “…coping strategies (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1998; Eubank & Collins, 2000; Jerome & Williams, 2000); psychological skills (Maynard et al., 1995a,b; Hale & Whitehouse, 1998; Page et al., 1999; Fletcher & Hanton, 2001); achievement motivation (Ntoumanis & Biddle, 1998); and gender (Perry & Williams, 1998).”
• Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS): Instrument refinement using confirmatory factor analysis (2010, methodology): “Fletcher and Hanton (2001) used the TOPS to examine whether the use of psychological skills was related to athletes’ competitive anxiety responses.”
• Perceived impact of anger and anxiety on sporting performance in rugby players (2007, unknown): “et al., 1994), experience (Mellalieu, Hanton, & O’Brien, 2004), performance (Jones et al., 1993), competitiveness (Jones & Swain, 1992), anxiety antecedents (Hanton & Jones, 1997), psychological skills ( Fletcher & Hanton, 2001 ), sport type (Hanton, Jones, & Mullen, 2000), hardiness (Hanton, Evans,”